X Marks the Spot
by goth-huntress
Summary: With dreams of pirate treasure dancing in his head, Sawyer gets Kate to take him to the Black Rock.
1. Chapter 1

X Marks the Spot – chapter 1

Lost

Word Count: 535

Rating: work safe

Author:

Disclaimer: Characters ain't mine, setting isn't mine yada yada yada

"You got dynamite off a pirate ship?" Sawyer narrowed his green eyes at Hurley who was telling Libby about how they had blown the cover off of the hatch. The conman hadn't really bothered to find out the details of where they'd gotten the explosives. He'd been too fucking sick with fever when Anna Looney had dragged him back to the majority of Flight 815's survivors. He'd just been too happy to be alive, and to find Kate hovering over him while he was on the mend to really care. But now, here was Hurley telling the tale for the new girl to hear about it. They seemed to be pretty chummy. He didn't miss the way her knuckles brushed against the fat boy's while they sat next to each other.

"Do you mind?" Libby glared up at the tall blond as he settled his butt against a palm tree arms folded across his chest to listen. "We're having a session?"

"Oh is that what y'all call it now?" he smirked and rolled his eyes. "A session with the shrink? Well not a bad idea, since he's been off his rocker more n' a few times."

"Piss off Sawyer," Hurley snapped. He was not in the mood to deal with the sociopath. "You want to know about the pirate ship? Go ask Kate or Jack. They were there. They know all about it."

Sawyer shrugged and stomped back over the pristine white sand towards the edge of the jungle where he pulled yet another paperback out of his back pocket to read while watching the horizon. The book wasn't very well written. He was over seventy-five pages into it, and there hadn't been a plot yet. All that had happened so far was the heroine getting laid by everyone in sight. That would have been fine for him, but the sex wasn't very well written either. Whoever Anita Blake was, he really didn't get why all the men in the book wanted to fuck her, wasn't like she was the only woman in St. Louis. He knew there were a few more books in his stash by the author, but now he wasn't sure he really wanted to read them. He'd have to wait until he was really desperate.

After about five more pages, the nagging voice in the back of his head kept saying – yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me – images of gold, jewels and booty draped over skeletal pirates filled his head. "Naw, there ain't no treasure," he said tossing the book towards the beach.

"Bad book?" Kate smiled at him while scooping her curly brown hair out of her face. He smiled over at her, and patted the sand next to him. "You throwing anything else out?"

"What you need Freckles?" he kept the wolfish grin on his face. "I'll give you anything you want for a story."

"A story huh?" she dropped down onto her heels before settling on the sand besides him. She was reading the back of the discarded book, so didn't notice him checking out her ass while she sat. "You want a bedtime story?"

"I want you to tell me about the Black Rock?"


	2. Chapter 2

X Marks the Spot – chapter 2

Lost

Word Count: 1034

Rating: work safe

Author:

Disclaimer: Characters ain't mine, setting isn't mine yada yada yada

"I want you to tell me about the Black Rock."

"There's not a whole lot to tell," Kate said as she picked at a frayed tear in the thigh of her jeans. Sawyer found his eyes flickering over the patch of golden tanned skin that showed through the hole. It had been a long time since he'd gone swimming with her, when they'd found the Marshal's guns, and he did have to wonder just how much prettier she had gotten since then. The woman made him want to be a better person sometimes, and he really hated her for that. "Rousseau told us about it. We hiked inland until we found it. We were pretty surprised to find out it was a ship. Arnst died while we were getting the dynamite that we used to blast open the Hatch."

"Arnst?" Sawyer's brow creased while he tried to remember who that was, and then nodded as he recalled the rabid high school science teacher who'd started going on and on about the monsoon season and such before they'd left on the raft. "Oh yeah, I was wonderin' what happened to him. He was a twitchy guy. All that rantin' about the weather and such."

"Well let's just say, it wasn't a good way to go out. You don't want the details."

"Don't be too sure about that. I might just be that bored." Leaning back against the palm tree, Sawyer rubbed a spot between his shoulder blade that he pretended was itching like crazy while he collected his thoughts and what his next move should be. If there was a treasure out there, he wasn't too sure he'd want to share it. But if he did have to share it, Kate would be his first choice. He'd be damned if that fucking self-righteous prick Jack got a hold of it. Sides, he was a doctor, and didn't need the money anyways. "So what kind of ship was it? How do you think it got that far inland?"

"It was from the 1800s," she said as she reached over to scratch the spot on his back without even thinking about it. She'd never been one to have long nails, but it was nice to see the smile of pleasure on his face instead of one of his sneaky cat ate the canary ones he usually wore. She was trying so hard to trust him, and not hold things against him that he had nothing to do with. "There were chains for holding slaves or prisoners on it. We didn't explore a whole lot of it though. Arnst had us all totally freaked out about the dynamite. It was sweating and very unstable from the heat and time and stuff."

"And Hurley made it all the way out there?" Sawyer snorted. "I'd figure he'd be pretty damned unstable from the heat and walk and stuff."

"He did just fine." Kate didn't add in the part about Hurley going ape shit when he'd seen those numbers on the Hatch. "We brought three sticks of the dynamite back to the Hatch to blow it open, and left the rest. What are you thinking about? You're not planning on going after the dynamite are you? What would you want with it? Can't see you trading it for food."

"I don't want the dynamite." He climbed up to his feet, and stretched wrapping his long arms around his torso until his back popped just right. "I was just curious about the ship. I mean what were they carrying 'sides slaves or prisoners. Was it one of those ships they sent to Australia full of prisoners? Did the polar bear come from it? There's a lot of questions about this place, and maybe some of the answers are on that boat. Did y'all read the captain's log?"

"Not really," she let out a ragged sigh as she stepped up besides him to look out onto the endless blue horizon. "We were in a hurry. Rousseau told us about the others coming for the boy, so we were going to try to hide down there. It was a race, and we didn't know that the boy they wanted was Walt."

"Well, we found out about that didn't we?" Sawyer rubbed at the now mostly healed bullet wound on his shoulder. "I want to go out there. See what's up with the ship. Don't want no dynamite. I've got the guns, why would I need dynamite?"

"I never know what you're up to Sawyer."

"What makes you think I'm up to somethin'? Can't a man just be curious? Think I'll head out there tomorrow morning. Just need to get a map, unless you wanna come with me?" he gave her a sweet gentle smile and did his best to look like an innocent little boy. "Or is it across that line that the Others gave us?"

"No, it's not in their territory. Sure I'll go with you. I'm curious too, and well I really don't have anything else to do." She glanced across the beach towards where Jack was talking to Rose about something. "I don't seem to be needed around here very much these days."

"Well I need you, Freckles." He said before he could stop the words from passing his lips. He didn't know if she believed him or not, and he wasn't too sure that he was happy to admit to himself that it was true. He loved her. Someday, he might even tell her, but he wasn't ready to expose that kind of weakness to her or anyone. "Tomorrow morning then? I'll bring us each a gun."

"Wow Sawyer and they say you don't know how to show a girl a good time." Sawyer settled back down to watch as we walked across the beach towards her tent admiring the way her jeans fit her in all the right places. He had expected to see her go to Jack to snitch on him and his plans, and a broad shit eating grin appeared on his face when she didn't. There was trouble between them, and if he played his cards right, the good doctor would be out of the picture.


	3. Chapter 3

X Marks the Spot – chapter 3

Lost

Word Count:

Rating: work safe

Author:

Disclaimer: Characters ain't mine, setting isn't mine yada yada yada

Even so close to the dawn, where the horizon was barely starting to lighten to a lighter shade of blue linked with the pale peach of the morning sun, the air of the Island was still warm and humid. It had rained the night before, leaving cow bellies full of water in the roof of Sawyer's tent. Kate had padded across the camp on feet that any cat burglar would be jealous of only to find him still sound asleep. She had a heavy backpack over one shoulder and her hiking boots tightly laced around her ankles as she thought about poking a hole into one of the sagging sections of his tent roof to send water pouring over him to wake him up.

She slipped a bit into the tent, still amazed that he hadn't woken up yet. It worried her a little. Was he still recovering from the gunshot wound? She didn't want to bring him out into the jungle away from Jack and the medicine if he was still sick. He looked almost innocent as he slept, the long fringe of his dark lashes brushing his cheeks. If it wasn't for the stubble of his beard, she'd thought he looked like the lost little boy that she knew James Ford really was.

"Sawyer?" she said softly, kicking at his foot to wake him up.

"What!" he snapped up in an instant, the thin blanket he'd covered his nakedness with falling to his waist. "Shit, Freckles you about gave me a heart attack. Y'all might want to make a noise when you come into a man's tent."

"Well you might want to be awake and ready to go when I come get you." Kate frowned down at him. "I expected you to wake me up this morning, ready to go find the Black Rock." Besides, she thought, now he was going to have to get into his gun stash with her tagging along. That brought a smile to her face as he rolled over flashing a very nicely shaped butt covered in only a small pair of underpants that left nothing to her very active imagination.

"Don't get your shorts in a knot, Sunshine," he grumbled as he climbed to his feet, bumping his shoulder against one of the cow bellies and sending the water down the sides of the tent. "I got watcha need right here." Sawyer reached beneath into a pack, and showed her a pair of guns. "I packed last night. Didn't want you followin' me out to my stash this mornin' and tellin' the good doctor and Locke where it is."

"I wasn't going to do that," Kate snapped at him, and then stomped back out onto the still damp sand. "We're not going to get anywhere if you don't trust me Sawyer."

"Sweetheart," he smirked as he yanked on a pair of jeans and boots for the hike, lastly pulling on a dark t-shirt with only a few holes in it. "I might like you, but you're probably the last soul on this damned island that I'd ever trust. We're too much alike for that." After brushing his teeth in a bucket of rain water outside of his lean-to, he handed her one of the prized guns and a box of ammo. "Be like a cat trustin' a spider not to hunt."

They left the camp like a pair of ghosts, even Sawyer's footstep muffled by the natural sounds of the jungle around them. Rain drops trapped in the foliage fell on them as they cut through the dense trees, but no new rain fell with the coming dawn. Sawyer tried to memorize as much of the trail as he could, but so much of the place looked alike to him, black lava, trees, vines, water, more trees, more lava, and yet more rocks. He didn't ask her if she knew where she was going. He'd lied when he said he didn't trust her. While he might not trust her heart and her motives, he did trust her sense of direction. There was no way the girl was going to get them lost in the jungle.

"Sheena?" he said after about two hours of silent hiking. He'd already set land marks into his head when he could, and hummed the entire contents of the CD case he'd left in his car back in LA at the airport long term parking where it'd probably been auctioned off by now. "Why don't we take a break? Sun's up, and we ain't had breakfast yet."

"OK," she scanned the area, and led him to a fallen palm tree that looked to be a good rest spot. "You're ok aren't you? Your shoulder doesn't hurt does it?"

He grinned sheepishly at her concern. It tickled at the tiny spot of softness left in his armor plated heart more than he'd ever admit to her. "I'm fine, darlin'. I'm just hungry. Wish that plane had dropped some smokes too. Don't remember the last time I had a cigarette."

"Well I'm sure the lack of tobacco and alcohol has been good for you."

"Please don't remind me," he ran his fingers through his hair. It was already growing out from the haircut she'd given him when he'd been well enough to go outside. "I have lived most of my life doin' what's bad for me. All this healthy livin' is not what I call livin'."

"I'm sure you're missing the morning hack and hangover," she teased as she pulled a pair of Darma energy bars from her pack, and handed him one. "I kind of like it here. I mean before the others, it was kind of safe."

"Well except for the damned monster. Hope we don't run into that thing. Didn't bring the elephant gun."

"Hopefully we won't need anything bigger than what we brought." Kate gazed out across the small clearing towards the dense jungle that surrounded them. The bright blooms of the hibiscus and other flowers hiding the gods alone knew what.

"Your lips to god's ears, Freckles. But I do have to admit that I miss the piggy dinners. Shame Locke's too busy with the Hatch to go huntin' anymore, and we all know how much I suck at it."

"That's just because that deadly smile of yours doesn't work on the boars."

"Well I don't try to use it on the borin'. Does it work on you?" he grinned making her heart catch in her throat. It was times like this that she really wished he was ugly.


	4. Chapter 4

Sawyer stretched his neck until he felt it pop relieving a good bit of tension, and pushed up off of the fallen tree. "Be right back," he said to her before stepping out of the clearing and into the brush. "Don'cha wanna know where I'm goin?"

"Sawyer," she cocked her head, letting her soft hair fall about her shoulders. "I'm not stupid. I know sometimes a guy's got to pee." She giggled at the shocked look on his face, and grinned. "Don't worry, I won't peek. It's not like you haven't flashed me more than a few times already." Kate pulled her pack up from the ground, nudging a slug away with her tow before it could crawl onto the pack. She shuddered a bit. She knew it was stupid, but slugs gave her the creeps more than anything else on the island. At least the other bugs had the decency to try to move out of your way, well except for the roaches. They had their own way of doing things, and she was sure it all would lead to them having world domination someday.

"Earth to Kate," Sawyer said jolting her out of her bug infested daydream with a jump. "You still with me Sheena?"

"Sorry," she ducked her head and blushed just a little bit for being caught unaware. "I was thinking about something. And no, before you get cocky, it wasn't about you. Although, you might qualify."

"Qualify for what?" he asked as she started off into the jungle again. "Or don't I wanna know?"

"You don't want to know."

He just grinned as he caught up a bit behind her. She was thinking about him, and that made him happier than a pig in shit. Around them the birds were chatting, mockingbirds and others filling the jungle with noises and life. Sawyer might have been born in the South, but that didn't mean he'd lived on a farm. Until his father had killed his mother, he'd lived in a nice house with a big back yard, and played in it with his best friend. After that he'd lived in a few foster homes, but he'd never had to deal with the great outdoors like the jungle, and it made him nervous.

Suddenly it grew quiet. He wasn't sure how far they were from camp. The last long trek he'd made around the island had been in a stretcher being dragged by Michael and Jin from the hell that was Ana Lucia's company. Kate held up her hand, to tell him to keep his mouth shut. Sawyer listened as hard as he could, but all he could hear was Kate's breathing and his own heart thumping in his chest.

"Run!" she said without raising her voice, and took off like a deer, her long legs carrying her through the tall grass and twisting vines like she had been born there.

Then he heard it, the clank of metal and the sound of huge feet pounding into the earth. Each step he took was echoed back at him by something bigger and meaner. He'd never seen the monster, but he knew that Kate had run into it more than once. "You don't need to tell me twice." He dashed along behind her, his long legs chewing up the distance to catch up with her until they came to a tangled growth of banyan. She vaulted up, scrambling to get purchase on the long roots that had grown from the branches into the ground. She slipped back against him, and he pressed her up into the tree with his large hands pushing on her rear end until she could get purchase.

His heart was pounding so hard.

* * *

/ flashback time because – well it's a LOST story/

* * *

Violet had been sobbing when they'd told her she couldn't have no more job, and Jimmy had cried right along with her. She'd been there to take care of him whenever momma and daddy had been too busy for him with work and social functions. Momma had lots of social functions, it was part of being a lady Violet had told him, but now momma had stopped going to functions.

Jimmy watched from his tree house as his parents got into another big fight, his daddy was so mad at his mother, blaming Mr. Sawyer for ruining their lives, sleeping with her and taking all their money. Then he told momma that he wasn't even sure he was Jimmy's daddy, and momma had hit his daddy. Jimmy winced from up in the tree seeing her handprint on his daddy's rough cheek. Daddy hadn't shaved that morning, said he had no reason too anymore. No job, no company, no life, he'd told Jimmy it was all over.

Then he'd told her to pack her bags and get her and her bastard out of his house. Momma was screaming and crying when she'd called for Jimmy, and made him pack up some of his clothes. He shoved his favorite t-shirts in the suitcase he had for staying over with his granny, and some shorts, toys and PJs. Before he could pack up his Hardy Boys books, she came in and told him they had to leave. Tears filled his eyes and ran hot down his cheeks as he was forced to leave behind his toys, books and his tank of fish. Momma told him he couldn't take his dog with him neither, and he hated her for it.

"I wish you were dead," he told her from the back seat of the car. "Then Mr. Sawyer couldn't have took all our money. This is all your fault." Jimmy didn't say anything again after the back of his mother's hand caught him across the mouth. He just stared at her through the rear view mirror licking at the blood from his split lip, wishing she was dead, and that he his daddy stilled loved him.

His momma drove into Knoxville, and got them a room at the Holiday Inn. Jimmy didn't like how the room smelled like perfume, too much bleach, and the bedspread felt like sandpaper when he climbed onto one of the beds. "I'm going to take a shower, Jimmy. You watch TV." Jimmy turned on the TV, and curled up on the bed to watch some movies on HBO. In the bathroom he could hear his momma crying before the water came on.

"It's two bedrooms, Mrs. Ford," the smelly bald man said, his beady black piggy eyes kept looking at his momma's chest instead of her eyes. Jimmy didn't like that, but he liked the hotel even less. "And it is in your price range. You'll need to sign a six month lease."

"Thank you," she said keeping her airs about her like a lady, his momma followed the man back into his office to make it official. "Jimmy you play here until momma comes back with the keys."

"Sweet dreams baby," his momma said kissing him on top of the head in his room. It was very clean compared to his room at home, mostly because he didn't have much to play with. His daddy was selling their big house, and momma kept saying when that happened they'd buy Jimmy new clothes and toys. She jumped when she heard the pounding on the thin door to their apartment. "Stay here."

The shouting started right after the front door was knocked off its hinges. Then Jimmy heard his mother screaming and the sound of his daddy's gun firing. He scrambled out of the corner of his bed, and crawled beneath it as he heard his daddy's booted feet come down the hallway. He near screamed when he felt his father sit down on the bed. It wasn't until the gun fired again, and the blood dripped through the thin mattress that he started to scream.

* * *

/meanwhile back on Fantasy Island/

* * *

Kate reached down for him, as his feet slipped on the roots again and again. Sawyer grabbed her hand, and let her pull him up. The monster was getting closer, and all the two of them could do was climb higher and higher into the banyan tree while they prayed to hell that they were out of the thing's reach. 


	5. Chapter 5

"What the fuck is that thing?" he panted as they clutched each other in the canopy. He could feel her heart beating in sync with his while they fought to catch their breath and stay quiet all at the same time. The tree shook, nearly knocking them from their perch. The twining roots snapping where they were too thin to withstand the force of the thing's blows. Sawyer pulled out his 9mm although he knew damned well that it would never stop the thing. He aimed at where he thought he saw something move, and the tree was rocked again. He and Kate watched helplessly as the gun bounced down the tree's trunk into the underbrush where they'd have to work damned hard to find it again if they ever did. "Shit!"

Kate grabbed Sawyer around the waist before he could do something stupid like trying to dive after the gun just as the tree was rocked one more time, and then everything went quiet. All they could hear was their own ragged breathing and the sounds of the jungle slowly returning. "I think it's gone," she said still holding him. His heart was beating so hard that she thought she could see it thumping through the thin fabric of his t-shirt.

"You sure?" Sawyer swallowed a mouthful of fear, and reached inside to find the surly, cocky, son of a bitch who wouldn't be shaking like a little kid in front of a woman. "Should have let me get the gun. Or should have let me use yours. Why didn't you shoot it?"

"I don't think it'd do any good, that's why." She let him go, narrowing her green eyes at him. "And I was trying to keep you from doing something incredibly stupid."

"Like what? Did you think I was goin' to try to slug it or something?"

"I never know with you Sawyer. You're like a lose cannon. I think you've got a death wish, but that lizard brain of yours won't let you die so you keep on fighting." He wanted to tell her to shut up. He hated that she could read him like graffiti in a bathroom stall. Instead he just started climbing down, searching the ground for the precious gun. "I'll go back, get our packs. Don't do anything," she paused leaving out – stupid. "While I'm gone."

"Don't you worry 'bout me none," he hissed as he scraped his shin on a sharp lava rock embedded between the twisted banyan's root stalks. "I'll just stay here plannin' on my next death defyin' entertainment for your pleasure. 'Cause you know, Freckles, it's all about me makin' your day."

Kate could feel the anger simmering beneath the surface as she retraced their hurried path through the jungle back to where they'd dropped their packs while running for their lives. The man made her want to kill him. He made her want to do a whole lot more than that too, and that just made her want to kill him more. "If he makes you so mad," she asked herself as she picked up a discarded plastic water bottle with the Oceanic Airlines label nearly worn off from constant refilling.

"Why do you take his shit? You'd be doing the entire camp a favor if you left him out here." She knew she couldn't do it. He was like a stray dog, who'd been beaten one to many times. He'd approach slowly, wag his tail a few times for a scrap of moldy bread, and then bite your hand if you tried to pet him. She knew what that felt like. Sawyer had said they were two of a kind, and she knew it was true. No matter how hard she tried to pretend that she was getting a new chance to start her life over here on the island, a life that included a place of respect in their tiny community, it didn't change that she'd killed her own father. She a kindred with Sawyer that she just didn't feel with Jack no matter how hard she wished she did.

When she got back, a pack over each of her arms, she found Sawyer resting back against the banyan picking dirt and gravel out of the gun's innards. "I found it all." She tossed him the bottle of water, so he could have a drink. He was dirty from climbing under the tree, and there were some deep bleeding scratches running up his left arm. "You're hurt."

"Ain't nothing," he said with a shrug. "I've had lot worse. It just fell where I had to fight to get to it. But it ain't all I found in there." He smiled up at her with a sly smile.

"What else did you find?" she felt a grin mirroring his spread across her face.

"Just this," he tossed her something small and shiny that she snatched out of the air. It was a gold coin. "That's an genu-wine British Sovereign gold piece darlin'. It's damn old too. Guess this means there is a treasure to be had."

"I still don't know the point of this treasure hunt," she settled down across from him, nearly close enough to touch, but not quite. "We don't need money here."

"We won't be here forever. Someday someone's goin' to find us," he took a deep breath and drew up one long leg to rest his hand across his knee. "We ain't goin' to be on this island for the rest of our lives."


End file.
